


untethered (good trouble)

by aphwhales



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sort of? - Freeform, Wing Grooming, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 15:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19444168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphwhales/pseuds/aphwhales
Summary: God knows on a semi-conscious level that everyone exists, the only people - or beings, really - that She really has time for are the Angels. Therefore, only they have a special connection to Her.Even strange Angels who have never fit in, like Aziraphale. It’s particularly painful for him, then, when he suddenlylosesthat connection.





	untethered (good trouble)

**Author's Note:**

> its 1am i hope they arent dreadfully ooc ahhh  
> tumblr @asriells

They say that everybody has some sort of special connection to God. This is false. 

While God knows on a semi-conscious level that everyone exists, the only people - or beings, really - that She really has time for are the Angels. Therefore, only they have a special connection to Her. 

It’s always there, in the back of their minds, somewhere in their souls, a small tether to the Almighty that every Angel can fall back on. A sort of belonging. 

Even for strange Angels who have never fit in, like Aziraphale. It’s particularly painful for him, then, when he suddenly _loses_ that connection. 

It sends him stumbling to the ground, and he drops the empty mug in his right hand and the books pressed between his chest and his left hand. The tile of the small kitchenette in the backroom of his shop is cool against his cheek.

He had figured Heaven wouldn’t dither. Aziraphale was banished, he knew, but to remove his connection to the Almighty seems excessive. And yet they’ve done it. 

Strictly speaking, Aziraphale does not need to breath, but now, on his hands and knees with glass shards sprinkled around his hands, he tries to breath deeply to calm himself. There’s an emptiness in his mind, in his very _soul_ , now, and he can hardly bear it long enough to stand up. 

Maybe he should sleep it off. _That’s what Crowley would do,_ he thinks. But he can barely muster the energy to push himself into a sitting position from the kitchen floor, or miracle his shattered mug back together. 

Eventually, Aziraphale simply stretches out, wings and all, on the tiled floor of the kitchenette. He doesn’t sleep - he barely drowses, really - but somehow he feels like he’s floating. His connection to God was a weight and it’s been taken from him, and now he’s floating away involuntarily. 

The tile feels nice and cool against his feathers, but Aziraphale doesn’t dare to look at his wings. He knows that they’re dirty, and unkempt - Crowley had commented, after the end of the Armageddon that hadn’t happened, that Aziraphale looked like he’d taken a dust bath and hadn’t fixed his feathers after - but knowing that they were still _there_ , it was grounding. 

He just doesn’t want to know if they’ve darkened. But Crowley had mentioned, once while drunk, that Falling had been incredibly painful. (Vaguely, Aziraphale recalls rumors that 6000 years ago, the Demons had had their wings broken before Falling. And maybe that’s why it hurt, not the Falling itself…) 

Aziraphale doesn’t know how long he’s been lying in his kitchen when the bell at the front of the shop rings, and the door slams closed suddenly. He feels so numb and he can’t lift his head, but he sullenly calls, “We’re absolutely, definitely closed. Possibly forever.” He sounds pathetic to his own ears, so he can’t imagine what the customer in the front must think.

The lock on the front door slides shut with a loud clink, and then Crowley calls, “‘s jus’ me, angel.” There are footsteps, and then they stop. If he bothered to move his head, Aziraphale would see Crowley’s snakeskin presumably-shoes standing on the saddle between the tile of the kitchenette and the wood of the main room. 

“Uh,” the Demon begins eloquently. “What’re you doing?” 

“Go away,” Aziraphale whines. 

“Did you finally get mites from not grooming your wings prop’rly?” Crowley asks, a hint of a grin in his voice. It falls back to a worried frown when the Angel on the floor doesn’t reply, and Crowley drops to kneel beside his head. “What’s wrong?” Quieter. 

Aziraphale doesn’t speak for a moment. Then, drawing into himself, “They cut my connection to the Almighty,” he whispers. Crowley only sighs and pushes back the sweaty curls from Aziraphale’s forehead. 

“‘m sorry,” Crowley replies limply, still sort of petting Aziraphale’s head awkwardly. “Why - why don’t you get off the floor, angel, come on, get _up_...” 

In the periphery of his vision as Crowley hauls him from the ground, Aziraphale can see that his wings are still white (if a little dirty), and he relaxes against the Demon. Crowley grunts and complains until he drops Aziraphale on his stomach onto the mostly unused bed in the very back of the bookshop. 

“H..how do you feel?” Crowley asks, almost gently, resting a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. 

Aziraphale considers this question. Since Crowley has arrived he feels a great deal better, but since he felt so awful it wasn’t really all that much in the long run. His brain still feels fuzzed with cotton, and the floating feeling… 

“Numb,” the Angel replies honestly, turning his face towards Crowley. The Demon looks stricken. “I. I really can’t quite believe they’d do this.” 

“Yeah, well,” Crowley mutters. “They’ve done it.” He’s still glaring at Aziraphale’s wings through his dark sunglasses. Then he pulls the glasses off and folds them, placing them gently on the (also unused) bedside table. “Lemme fix your wings?” 

Aziraphale takes time to consider this offer, and not just because the fog in his brain makes him compute everything ten times slower than he normally would. Letting even another Angel touch your wings is an intimate act - to let a _Demon_... But it’s Crowley. In the end it’s hardly even a choice. “Do be gentle, my dear.” 

“Mmph,” Crowley grunts in response, moving down the bed, closer to the Angel’s shoulders. “Your shirt, Aziraphale.” 

“Right…” But he makes no move to remove it, and no miracle happens either. His hand moves from the sheets only slightly. “Um.” 

“No energy. Got it,” and Crowley miracles the top half of Aziraphale’s outfit off, onto a chair into the corner of the bedroom (He very specifically does not make it fold itself. He has to antagonize the Angel _somehow_ ). 

Aziraphale stretches as Crowley assesses the damage. The last time the Angel preened was probably back when they were in Eden, judging by his messy feathers. Some were broken, and there were molted feathers stuck in the grown in ones. 

Crowley doesn’t complain, only huffs and begins his work, starting with the left side.

The oil glands near Aziraphale’s shoulders are, thankfully, fully functionally, so Crowley starts around the scapulars and marginal coverts. They aren’t too bad, but the first five or so time he runs a hand through them, tufts of down fly out. 

Any normal Angel - or even Demon, honestly - would be making noises a human could only compare to _purring_ by now. Frankly, Aziraphale is not a normal Angel, but this was a sense that he _should_ be normal in. Crowley winds his way up to the Angel’s face, snake-like, and finds Aziraphale’s gaze vacant. 

So he continues on. Aziraphale’s primaries and secondaries are a nightmare, and he has to pull several broken feathers, but even these get barely a reaction from the angel. Otherwise, it’s relaxing, if not easy work. Interlock the feathers, make sure all the previous molts are out, et cetera. 

He moves on to Aziraphale’s right wing and repeats the process. “...You okay, angel?”

“How could I be?” Aziraphale’s voice cracks when he answers after a moment. “I’ve been banished from Heaven, disconnected from the Almighty, I’m a terrible Angel!” 

“...You did what you thought was right. Isn’t that what good is ‘sposed to be?” Crowley muses, carding his fingers through the secondary coverts and then the secondaries of Aziraphale’s right wing. Finally, he flops onto the bed next to the Angel, and Aziraphale rolls onto his left side to face Crowley. His narrowed blue eyes meet Crowley’s yellow, wide with expectation for an answer. 

“I...I don’t know!” Aziraphale whispers, bringing his limbs into his chest. Tears creep from the corners of his eyes, and Crowley pulls him closer, until the Angel’s head is under his chin. “I don’t know what I did wrong, I thought that as a Principality I was meant to protect humanity!”

“Inspire them,” Crowley corrects. “Far as I’m concerned, Heaven’s in the wrong, here, angel. You saved lives instead of them... what was it Adam said?” 

Aziraphale sniffs. “Fighting just to see who’s gang is better.”

“Right, yeah.”

“I’m sorry for this trouble,” Aziraphale sighs, making to get up from the bed. Crowley pulls him back down. 

The Demon smiles, almost sweetly. “Any trouble caused by you isn’t any trouble at all, angel.”


End file.
